Thread: 3.4 speculation

Garlemald's motivation is very simple - go forth and conquer. That's it.

This mentality was brought up by Solus zos Galvus, the first emperor of Garlemald who starting ~50 years ago turned the country from a humble farming nation into the warlike magitek empire it is today. Their efforts to shackle Primals are on the surface noble, but deep down little more than a means to stop people from impeding their way with said Primals and make sure there's something left to rule when they're done. They are much more based on the Gestahlian Empire from VI than the Archadian Empire from XII... Which is no small part of what has me so concerned about what's going to happen on Azys Lla and with the Triad in regards to them... Hell, their magitek armors are perfect recreations of the ones from VI, alt. paint schemes notwithstanding.

In many ways, Gaius van Baelsar embodied the best and worst aspects of the Empire. On the one hand he was meritocratic, sporting in combat, gave a fair chance to surrender, and was horrified when Lahabrea's forced casting of Ultima laid waste to the Praetorium. On the other... he still considered Eorzea his for the taking because he believed nobody could stop him and condemned all religion as a sham (even being a non-religious person I won't do the same; though I do find it somewhat odd Lucia suddenly found religion when she fell in love with Aymeric after a lifetime of atheism... but I digress).

Of course, as I've become somewhat (in)famous for saying, this doesn't preclude the possibility of there being some good characters in the Empire - a Judge Drace or Gabranth, if you will. Still, there's no evidence of such a figure yet, and until then the only "good" Garleans we have are expatriates.